Böcker av Robert Guttmann

History teaches us important lessons, provided we can discern its patterns. Multi-Polar Capitalism applies this insight to the crucial, yet often underappreciated issue of international monetary relations. When international monetary systems get first put into place successfully, such as the ¿classic¿ gold standard in 1879, Bretton Woods in 1945, or the dollar standard in 1982, they structure relations between the system¿s centre and the rest of the world so that others can catch up to the leader. But this growth-promoting constellation, a vector for accelerating globalization, runs its course eventually amidst mounting overproduction conditions in key sectors and spreading financial instability. Such periods of global crisis, from the Great Depression of the 1930s to stagflation in the 1970s and creeping deflation during much of the 2010s, force restructuring and policy reforms until conditions are ripe for a renewed phase of sustained expansion.We are facing such a turning point now. As we are moving from a US-dominated world economy towards a multi-polar configuration, we will also see the longstanding dollar standard give way to a multi-currency system. Three currency blocs rooted in the dollar, euro, and yuan will be dominated respectively by the United States, the European Union, and China, each a power centre representing a distinct variant of capitalism. Their complex mix of competition and cooperation necessitates new ¿rules of the game¿ promoting the shared pursuit of global public goods, in particular the impending zero-carbon transition, lest we allow fragmentation and conflict shape this next chapter of our history.Multi-Polar Capitalism adds to a century of research and debate on long waves, those roughly half-century cycles first identified by the great Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev in the early 1920s, by highlighting the role of the international monetary system in this distinct boom-and-bust pattern.

Our planet faces a systemic threat from climate change, which the world community of nations is ill-prepared to address, and this book argues that a new form of ecologically conscious capitalism is needed in order to tackle this serious and rising threat.

Our planet faces a systemic threat from climate change, which the world community of nations is ill-prepared to address, and this book argues that a new form of ecologically conscious capitalism is needed in order to tackle this serious and rising threat.

The author applies economic analysis to this new form of electronic money to understand how it will enable the internet to re-establish itself as the dynamic centre of the new economy and how this new money form will become the dominant payment mechanism rivalling cash, paper cheques or credit cards.

This text examines money, credit, and economic activity in the increasingly integrated global economy. It focuses on the problems afflicting the United States as it adapts to the transformation of the world economy and analyzes.